Iridium Communications says it’s reached 500,000 subscribers for its satellite voice and data services worldwide. Around 10% of these are US Government workers. It says recent growth has been helped by the machine-to-machine data market, with M2M data subscribers representing 32% of commercial subscribers and 21% of government subscribers.
Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium, said “Our consistent double-digit growth in subscribers - more than 25% growth every year for the last five years - is a reflection of our global network reach, our service offerings enabling important connections, and our expanding partner ecosystem. This milestone demonstrates how far we've evolved over the last 10 years from a supplier of mobile satellite phones for niche markets into a global communications company connecting anyone and anything, all over the world, in ways and places in which they expect to be connected.”